Facts About Greece

Greece is one of the best places in the world to visit. Here are some interesting and thrilling facts about Greece.

1. Greece is the only country in the world that is officially Orthodox (Christian).

2. The Greeks are dependent on industries like agriculture, food, wine tobacco, dairy products, olives, tomatoes, potatoes,

wheat, barley, Tourism, Chemicals, Metal, Mining, and Petroleum etc.

3. Many Greek structures such as doors, windowsills, furniture, and church domes are painted a turquoise blue, especially in the Cyclades Islands. It is used because of an ancient belief that this shade of blue keeps evil away. They called the color kyanos, which the words "cyan" and "cyanide" are derived from.

4. The official name of Greece is the Hellenic Republic. It is also known as Ellas or Ellada and it is one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

5. 80% of Greece is mountainous and 50% is covered by forests. There are about 3000 islands, only a few hundreds of which are inhabited.

6. In Greece, the dead are always buried because the Greek Orthodox Church forbids cremation. Five years after a burial, the body is exhumed and the bones are first washed with wine and then placed in an ossuary. This is done in part to relieve the shortage of land in Greek cemeteries.

7. The Ancient Greeks played an important part in the development of the alphabet. The first two letters of the Greek alphabet - alpha and beta - have given us the word 'alphabet'.

8. The National Anthem of Greece contains 158 verses- no one has memorized all 158.

9. The maritime fleet of Greece is the largest in the world today. It has about three thousand vessels, which accounts for more than fifteen percent of the total fleet capacity of the world.

10. No part of Greece is more than 85 miles from the sea.

11. The most impressive museum in Greece - Benaki Museum, has more than 200,000 Greek artifacts and some of the finest paintings and sculptures you could imagine.

12. Football is the national sport of Greece.

13. The Greeks built temples to be the gods and goddesses homes. The temples showed how wealthy and powerful the city was. Rich cities, like Athens, built temples of the best stone, and decorated them with paintings, statues and carvings.

14. Greece has more archaeological museums than any other country in the world.

15. Tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional way of proposing in Greece.

16. Greek ships make up 70% of the European Union's total merchant fleet. According to Greek law, 75% of a ship"s crew must be Greek.